Back Home
by DFM
Summary: Co-habitation... it should be fun as long as they don't kill each other. Sequel to At Home.
1. Intimidation Lessons

**Title: **Back Home

**Pairing(s):** Castle/Beckett

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Co-habitation... it should be fun as long as they don't kill each other. Sequel to _At Home_.

**Disclaimer:** If it looks or sounds like something from Castle, I don't own it.

**Spoilers:** Nothing too major at this point, but I'll let you know if that changes.

**A/N:** You thought I'd forgotten that I owed you a sequel, huh? I, in fact, did not! Fair warning though... this may be slow to update. I have a feeling that _Emma_ and another story I'm working on will get most of my attention. I'll try and not make it too long between chapters.

* * *

Alexis had seen her father freak out a few times in her young life, but she'd never felt such a perverse glee from it before. She glanced at Kate, who was sitting beside her, thumbing through a magazine. They were both ready to go. "Should we help him?"

"No."

Alexis wasn't surprised. Kate had offered her assistance earlier only to be informed smugly that he, "had done this before."

So, she merely sat back and watched as her father tried to prepare himself to meet Jim Beckett for the first time. She briefly considered pulling out her phone to record this moment to show to Ash later, but decided that might be too mean.

Then she remembered the gun that had recently been waved in her boyfriend's face and reconsidered again.

"I'm going to want a copy of that video," Kate said, though Alexis had yet to see her glance up. She wondered if Kate was developing 'mommy senses' or if it was simply the cop in her.

"You, like your father, are not particularly subtle, Lex," Kate answered her unspoken question. Alexis shrugged; sometimes you just couldn't escape genetics. Kate waited until Alexis had enough blackmail to get 5 scooters, to match whatever outfit she might be wearing, before calling out, "Castle, wear the blue shirt with the silver tie. If you're not ready in 5 minutes Alexis and I are leaving without you."

"But what about - "

"My father is not coming over here for an inspection."

"He could - "

"No. We're just going out to dinner tonight and that's it." Rick started to protest again, but she was done. "You also don't need to show him a bank statement, results from your last check-up, or bring character references."

Alexis was sure her father was about to start pouting, but Kate stood up and walked to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She was always fascinated watching the dynamic between the two of them.

"My dad is nowhere near as intimidating as you seem to think he is. He knows that you and Alexis mean a lot to me, so he's not going to incite a mob against you."

"That really isn't how it works," Rick answered, but he did seem calmer.

Kate shook her head and pulled him into a kiss that made Alexis want to cover her eyes. When they separated she whispered, "3 minutes."

Their laughter followed him as he ran to quickly finish getting ready.

##

Beckett was going to kill her dad, that's all there was to it. She hadn't expected him to immediately become friends with Castle, she hadn't particularly liked him when they'd first met (he was being unhelpful in a _murder investigation_), but she'd expected her dad to be _nice_. So far tonight he'd almost broken Castle's hand while shaking it, made thinly veiled comments about Page Six articles, and called Castle Rich instead of Rick (which made Castle twitch every single time). The scene might have actually been funny if it were happening to someone else. Or it might have looked like a bad sitcom.

On the other hand, her dad and Alexis seemed to be getting along very well. It wasn't long before they were joking around and discussing Russian vs. European composers.

"Katie tells me you have a boyfriend, Alexis."

Beckett tried not to wince, not particularly liking where this conversation was probably going. Castle either sensed it as well or had picked up on her slight tick, and took a gulp of wine. Alexis, however, picked up on none of this and smiled the bright smile that always appeared on her face when Ashley came up.

"Yeah, Ashley. He's so wonderful."

"Well, if he ever treats you less than wonderfully let me know. Katie had this boyfriend in high school that broke her heart. A week later he 'disappeared'." Her dad grinned conspiratorially and winked, but Beckett did not miss the subtle glance he threw in Castle's direction first.

"Dad, can I talk to you for a minute?" Not waiting for his reply, she stood up and hoped he would follow. She made it outside and had only just started to pace when her father joined her, holding out her coat to her. Reluctantly, she accepted it.

"What are we doing out here, Katie? We're in the middle of dinner."

"What are you doing, Dad?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've been less than civil to Castle all night, when you talk to him at all, of course. And now you're telling stories that make it sound like you have mafia connections or something!"

"I never said - "

"_Disappeared_, Dad? You know as well as I do that Tommy and his family moved to Maine! You didn't have him taken out or whatever the hell was the point of that story. You've never been blatant about your hatred of my boyfriends before. Can't you -"

"I don't hate Rick."

Very few things were capable of making Beckett freeze and stare in bewilderment, but at that very moment she was capable of little else. "Then why -"

"How many boyfriends have you introduced me to in the last 5 years?"

"On purpose?"

Jim rolled his eyes. "Yes. I am _not_ counting when one accidentally answers your phone."

Beckett considered. "Two."

"And of those two, how many were you living with?"

"None..." She had a feeling she should know where he was going with this, but she was still lost.

"Exactly. This guy is different. You've let Rick get closer to you than any guy in a long time. That means he is more capable of hurting you than any of them. As your father, it's my job to limit that possibility."

"So, you like Castle..."

"Of course."

"This is some twisted Dad-logic that is never going to make sense to me, isn't it?"

Laughing, Jim wrapped an arm around his daughter and walked her back into the restaurant. "It'll make more sense when you have kids."

##

"I realized something tonight," Castle said as he slid into bed next to Beckett, who was already half-way asleep.

"That I'm not pretty enough for you to have to put up with a crazy father?"

With a snort of laughter, he slid his arm around her middle, and they easily settled against each other. "Okay, I realized two things."

If her eyes had been open she would have rolled them. "Remind me to hurt you for that tomorrow."

"First thing," he assured with mock-solemnity. "No, I realized I'm way too nice to Ashley." There was a long pause where neither said anything. "Kate?"

"What? I was waiting for the rest of the joke."

"Hey! I think, considering the boy is regularly trying to examine my only daughter's tonsils, I've been letting him off easy! I thought your dad was going to castrate me in the middle of a five star restaurant tonight!"

"Not on a first date, Rick."

"Seriously, I would have been taking notes if I could have made my hand stop shaking long enough."

With the sigh of someone who was being denied much needed rest, Beckett turned over and looked up at him. "When I was in middle school, my dad insisted on chaperoning my first date. He glared when Jake tried to hold my hand, he sat in the same row as us in the movie and slapped the poor boy's arm away when he tried to wrap it around my shoulder. Dad walked him to the door instead of me when we dropped him off so that he wouldn't get any ideas about trying to kiss me good night. I didn't get asked out again for months, and barely talked to my dad for most of that time."

Castle was trying to look sympathetic, but the sheer amount of energy it was taking to not laugh was making that hard. "Poor little Katie. I bet the boys couldn't stay away for too long, no matter what your dad did."

"You'd be surprised. But that wasn't my point."

"What was?"

Leaning up so that their lips were just a fraction of an inch apart, she whispered, "You, Mr. Castle, got off easy."

##

TBC

##


	2. Writer's Block

"Castle?" Beckett called through the eerily quiet loft. One of the things she loved about this place was how it always seemed to vibrate with energy, though it had taken a bit of getting used to when she'd first moved in. But now she had to keep from wincing at each scrape of her shoes across the floor, every movement amplified in the silence. What was going on? "Castle?" She called out again.

In the end, she didn't have to look very far. She found him, sitting behind his desk, staring unseeingly at his computer. She knocked on the open study door, but still got no response. "Rick!"

Startled, Castle jerked his eyes up in the direction of her voice, blinking several times to awake from the hypnotic trance the computer had placed him under. "Hey... When'd you get here?"

"A few minutes ago. Have you had any luck?" Since the release of _Naked Heat_ Gina had been after Castle to start on the next book. He'd gone through several different outlines, even got as far as starting a first chapter for one of them, but in the end each idea had been trashed. Before this past month Beckett had assumed that writers sitting in rooms full of crumpled pages of discarded ideas, stale cups of coffee, with their hair sticking up in patterns that can only come from running your fingers through it too many times, were just an exaggeration of Hollywood. Apparently even Castle wasn't above some clichés.

"No," he answered on a sigh before snapping his laptop shut. "None of them... they just don't fit."

Crossing the room, Beckett stopped directly behind him and gently began kneading the muscles of his neck and shoulders. He let out a groan of pleasure and allowed his head to loll forward.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help?" She'd been asking him that for two weeks now, getting almost as frustrated as he was with her inability to help him break through his writer's block.

Laying a hand on hers to stop their movements, Castle tugged her into his lap. "I really just have to work through it. You continue to be your usual inspiring self and I'm sure something will come to me."

Leaning forward, Beckett took his mouth in a tender kiss, deepening it just long enough to draw a groan from the back of his throat, before moving away. "That was not one of your better lines, Castle."

"And yet you haven't moved."

"Maybe I'm just taking pity on you."

"I'm not above accepting pity."

He leaned in to steal another kiss, but she dodged, jumping off of his lap before he could tighten his grip around her waist. "Later. We need to get out of here."

In that moment, she found one of the true benefits of having a boyfriend who regularly let his inner child rule his life was that he didn't even question her on the plan, and instead went off in search for his shoes.

##

Long, deep notes from a trumpet drifted out of the door they had stopped in front of. Castle looked around for a sign or a plaque that would give some hint of the place Beckett had given the cab driver the address of, but he saw none. "Where are we?"

"The best jazz club in the city." Tugging on his arm, she led him towards the door, pausing before knocking twice rapidly before three slower beats.

"Run by the mob?" he asked with probably just a little too much excitement.

"No."

A burly bouncer pulled open the door and smiled, which sadly did nothing to make him less intimidating. "A little early this month, aren't you, Copper?"

"Special circumstance. Don't worry though, you'll still see Lanie soon."

Castle would have sworn it wasn't possible based on his first impression of the man, but the bouncer blushed in response to Kate's words. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Inside the tables were spaced only far enough apart to allow for the staff and patrons to walk between them, and, with almost all of them full, the collective body heat was doing more to heat the space than any furnace could. There was a bar to one side of the room and a dance floor in the center, just in front of the stage, which currently held a lone trumpet player and a singer crooning an old standard. Couples swayed together on the floor, mostly in time with the song.

"Drink?" Kate suggested, nodding towards the crowded bar.

"Sure." As they waited, his amused smile couldn't be contained anymore. "So, Copper," he started, earning the groan he knew he would, "all I had to do to find out your and Lanie's secret hideout was make myself exceedingly pathetic?"

Poking him sharply in the chest, Beckett warned, "Don't you dare tell her I brought you here."

"Oh, I think I'm going to need a little more incentive to keep this to myself. After all, I'm sure the guys would love the location of the 'best jazz club in the city'. It would be selfish to keep it from them."

"I would think," Beckett stepped closer, crowding his space until their breaths mingled, "that a live girlfriend as opposed to a dead one would be incentive enough."

He was tempted to just fold, let her win the round and move on to the part where he got to hold her in his arms and taste her mouth beneath his, but that wasn't how they worked. "Lanie would never kill you. So, I think I'm still going to need something else from you."

"And what, exactly, were you thinking in terms of repayment, Mr. Castle?"

Tilting his head to the side, he brought his lips close to her ears, savoring the shiver that ran through her body and into his. "Well, since you asked for specifics... First, I'm -"

"What can I get you folks?"

Slumping forward, Castle buried his head in Beckett's neck as she shook with laughter and looked at the intruding bartender. "Two vodka martinis, one with extra olives. Thanks."

Castle watched as the bartender nodded and walked off to prepare their drinks. "I thought only Ryan and Esposito had perfected that kind of timing."

"I believe they do still have the record for most moments spoiled, but you have to admit that your mother is getting pretty close."

Shuddering comedically, he conceded the point. "I'm going to need years of therapy to get over last weekend. I'd say we should institute a sock on the doorknob rule, but I'm afraid of finding out how often Mother would enact it."

"I'm sure Alexis feels the same about you." She laughed as another grimace took over his face. Picking up one of the drinks that had just been placed in front of them, she handed it to him before taking possession of her own. "Drink up, Rick. You owe me a dance."

"A debt I will happily repay."

##

"Oops." A giggle escaped Kate's lips before she could bring a hand up to smother it.

"Shh," Rick warned, barely containing his own laughter, his voice only marginally closer to a whisper, as he wrestled his keys out of the loft door. "Mother and Alexis are probably back by now."

Kicking off her heels to allow for a little more stability on her suspiciously shaky legs, Beckett turned towards him with a challenging look. "I don't think I'm the one we have to worry about being... vocal."

"Screaming into a pillow doesn't count as being quiet."

Pretending to look indignant, Beckett put up a token protest as he pulled her to him, cutting off any further conversation.

##

A chill ran down Beckett's spine, her body significantly cooler than when she'd slipped into sleep. Turning instinctively towards where Castle usually lay beside her, more than willing to steal all of his warmth, she was surprised when nothing but cool sheets greeted her. Blinking her eyes open, she looked around the room for a sign of where he had wandered off to. The low glow of his desk lamp, just beyond the bedroom door, and the faint clicks of a keyboard being struck gave her all the information she needed.

Briefly pausing to tug on one of his t-shirts, a girlfriend perk she took no shame in even if she did end up sleeping in his clothes more often than her own, Kate walked with the quiet grace born somewhere between dance classes and the police academy. Though she could have walked across the floor in her most clopping heals because the sight that greeted her was that of Richard Castle completely lost in the world of Nikki Heat.

Smiling, Kate lay down on the sinfully comfortable couch in Rick's office, pulling the nearby throw over herself to stave off the cold, and watched Rick work until she fell asleep.


End file.
